WandaLandQuilts
Making Memories Through Quilts
Childs Quillow
Brady Kalivoda drives a Top Fuel Dragster for Warrior Racing. This is a picture of Brady holding a baby quillow. We met Brady at the U.S. Nationals in 2011. One of his sponsors, Moorefield Construction, arranged for us to meet Brady and spend a little time with him in the pits. His girlfriend, Althea, and his newborn son, Brooks (8 mo. old at the time) were there as well. Brady was so gracious and so welcoming we became instant fans. We wound up spending the day and a good part of the evening with Brady and his family and the crew. I decided to make Brooks a quillow as a gift to the Kalivoda family for their kindness and generosity to us that afternoon.
If you look closely at the picture, you will see that there are some photo transfers as well as some MC shirt emblems. If you don’t know what a quillow is, let me explain. From the front it looks just like a quilt, but on the back there is a pocket where you can put your feet to keep them warm. When not using the quilt, it can be folded in such a way that it folds into the pocket and becomes a pillow. A rather simple pattern that has such wonderful benefits, and the smiles from the recipients warm your heart.
2012 Y-Flyer Sailing Nationals Quilt
The drawing for the sailing nationals quilt was held at the Beers Regatta in Atlanta, GA earlier this month. The winner is Ben Guise of Little Rock, Arkansas. We raised close to $500 this year. Thanks to everyone who bought tickets!
Childhood Memories
This is a t-shirt quilt I finished recently:
This is a jersey quilt – made up of hockey, basketball, baseball, and football jerseys. Aaron was truly an active young man. When he graduated high school his mother rounded up all these jerseys and t-shirts to have this quilt made for him. As we sorted through the shirts and jerseys, she would tell me a short story about that team or tournament. There were even pants from little league baseball – I was able to cut out a couple small squares of those and put them into the quilt. I could tell these shirts were as special to her as they were to him.
Good Luck at Indiana State University, Aaron.
2012 Y-Flyer Sailing Nationals Quilt
This year our sailing nationals were held at Harbor Island Yacht Club in Nashville, TN. This is the quilt I’m making as the annual fund raiser for the nationals. Since we just moved I didn’t have time to get it completed in time to present at the nationals, so it will be presented at the Gilbert A Beers Memorial Regatta on October 14th in Atlanta, GA. I was able to complete the quilt top at the ISQG Summer Retreat in mid July. Below are pictures of the fabrics I used – beautiful line of musical themed fabrics and the completed quilt top.
Week 13 – May 13 – 19 – Quilted Throw Pillows
Voila! Here’s what I made with the “practice quilt” from last week. Ok Ok Ok, I know what some of you are thinking – I can’t believe she cut up that quilt!
There are two sides to this argument – if you have a quilt top or a quilt that is special to you in some way, you can save it as is, finish it, have it mended, preserve it, display it, put it in your will and hand it down to your kids, but NEVER cut it up. Or, since this quilt is not special to me in any way (other than to teach me how to machine quilt a top that was poorly pieced), I fixed and finished the quilt top, machine quilted it, then cut it up and made something useful of it. To me this is an acceptable way to use a quilt. Using it to cover the lawn mower in the barn is NOT an acceptable way to use a quilt.
So, I think you’ll see how wonderful these two pillows are and they look great on the black leather couch in the living room. I have some more of the quilt left and I’m not sure what to do with it yet, do you have any suggestions?
Week 12 – May 6 – 12, 2012 – Finish That Quilt
This is a quilt top I purchased on eBay for about $10. I bought it with the idea of using it to practice quilting on my quilting machine – which I did. However, I did add the outside borders first since it was SO out of square. It’s hand pieced and had several puckers and gathers in it so it was a real challenge to quilt, but it turned out nicely. Once it was quilted, I couldn’t decide what to do with it. We really didn’t need another lap size quilt to keep in the living room (I have a stack) and I didn’t know of anyone who wanted a “practice quilt” (if you’re ever interested in purchasing a practice quilt just let me know) so I did the next best thing … see next week for the result.
Week 11– April 29 – May 5, 2012 – Rice Heading Pad
Oh, what a wonderful project this is. These little bags are easily constructed and then filled with regular rice. Heated in the microwave for just a minute or two then placed where needed to provide comfort. Use as you would a regular heating pad but without the hassle of a cord. And the longer ones can be wrapped around a knee or ankle and give warmth to the entire joint. A couple of these are backed in cozy flannel to provide a soft fabric next to your skin. Plus, if you keep one in the freezer you can also use it as an ice pack. How cool is that?!
Week 10 – April 22 – 28, 2012 – Potpourri Air
These cute little air fresheners are the easiest and most fun to make. Using a couple of 5” charm squares, a piece of tulle (wedding netting), a piece of ribbon, and your favorite smelling potpourri, you can whip these up in just a few minutes. I made several of these and put them in different rooms in our new house. For some reason, this new house just doesn’t smell “right” but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s just a different kind of wood, the carpets, the water, who knows? Anyway, these little air fresheners were just the thing to fix that! Now the whole house smells just wonderful.
Week 9 – April 15 – 21, 2012 – Bone Neck Pillow
Look another pillow! What can I say, I like pillows. Although I’m not one of those women who likes 15 pillows on my bed, but when I want a pillow I like to have them handy. This one is especially nice to have on the couch when I lay down to read a book or to have in the car to put in the small of my back.
Making this bone pillow was really interesting. It doesn’t have as much a “bone” shape as I thought it would. I had hoped the ends would be a little bigger and a bit skinnier in the middle. I’ll have to adjust the pattern for the next one. The way the ends were sewn was fun. There is only one pattern piece that makes the length of the pillow and those cute “boxy” ends. I don’t think I put enough stuffing in it, so next time I’ll have to really cram it full of polyester stuffing.
And look at those fabrics! Is that wild stuff or what? That is left over fabric from making medical scrubs. (nurses wearing this fabric is ok, but doctors, no, that’s not right) There’s a place here in Indy that makes scrubs and flannel house pants. A couple years ago I went to the factory and asked if they have any scraps. Pretty bold thing to do, but what the heck, the worst that could happen is they would laugh and send me on my way. Well, they didn’t laugh but they did point to the dumpster. Seriously?! Hum, so I put my purse and keys in the car (don’t want to lose those in the dumpster!) and went dumpster diving. It really wasn’t that bad considering there was just a bunch of fabric scraps and general trash like boxes, newspapers, and empty soda cans – I guess what I’m saying is there was no real garbage or dead bodies or anything like that. Just stacks of fabric scraps that took a couple hours to sort through. Apparently, they stack up lots of layers of fabric and use a long vertical saw blade thing to cut out the pattern pieces and they toss the scraps into the dumpster. Ok by me – let’s go diving!
Week 8 – April 8 – 14, 2012 – Curved Neck Pillow
Oh My Gosh! Is this the easiest thing to sew or what? This is like “Sewing 101” without the beginning “10” just “Sewing 1.” I can’t believe I actually bought a pattern for this. Ok, so there are other pillow patterns in the pattern packet, but good grief.
Cut out two pieces, wrong sides together, sew leaving an opening, turn right side out, stuff, and sew opening closed. Use it while reading in bed, napping on the couch, or take on an airplane or the car while on a trip. Totally easy and totally wonderful.
The only problem I had was the fabric I chose to use. Not sure exactly what it is because I bought it off the remnant bin at JoAnn Fabrics. (so that makes this project easy and cheap) It’s really soft and cuddly feeling, like a minkie fabric (baby quilt fabric). Back to the problem – since it’s so plush and fluffy when it’s cut there is lint everywhere! What a huge mess! I had to use my lint roller (see picture) to clean up the mess on the ironing board and around my sewing machine, plus I’ll have to vacuum, too. I had to put the rest of the fabric into a bag so it wouldn’t continue to make a mess out of Wandaland.
A suggestion, not really a problem exactly, is that if this were made for a man it would probably have to have a bigger neck opening. Same issue if making it for a child, adjust the size. Modifying the pattern should be easy enough. I’d also like to make it out of different fabrics, like to match pillows or a quilt. For a child you could use juvenile prints, funky prints for a teenager, or Hawaiian fabric for my husband (not that he’s been there, but it would match his sailing shirts!).
And just think of making these for Christmas presents! So for my family – be looking under the tree for yours this holiday season.
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